Kolkata's Jamsteady Set For Festival Edition in December

Oct 16, 05:55pm

Come November, it will be three years since Kolkata event management firm Smoke Inc kicked off their weekly gig series Jamsteady – one of the few ventures to have stuck it out despite low crowd attendance and the like to continue hosting gigs in the city. Whether it’s American pop artist Angie Miller or collaborating with the tour series 2Stroke Tour, they’ve made sure Kolkata has been a part of the live music circuit.

To celebrate, they’re supersizing Jamsteady into a festival called Big Sunday on December 13, making it’s way into the already packed December Festival season, which includes Magnetic Fields in Rajasthan, Johnnie Walker the Journey in Mumbai and the Bangalore and Pune editions of Bacardi NH7 Weekender. Smoke Inc. founder Nishit Arora told us, “There are enough people to fill up all these festivals and more. So no worries on that [festivals drawing audiences out of Kolkata]. December in Kolkata is beautiful and it is the best time of the year to plan an outdoor festival.”

With Smoke Inc teaming up with veteran BBC sound engineer and producer Miti Adhikari, the first edition of Jamsteady’s Big Sunday includes bands such as experimental rock band Pinknoise, electro-indie band Sky Rabbit from Mumbai, rap rockers Underground Authority, Bangla rock band Fossils, pop rock band The Ganesh Talkies, dream pop artist Nischay Parekh and Jivraj Singh (now called zap), adding to the total of 20 artists across two stages. The target audience, Arora explains is pan-India. “We want to get people from all over India to come to Calcutta for the Big Sunday. Practically speaking, this may not happen in our first year but eventually that is what we are aiming for,” says Arora.

With Big Sunday, the organisers clearly want to give Kolkata its own festival to be proud of. The location, however, may not be constant. Says Arora, “If people support us we will keep pushing ourselves to create mindblowing experiences each year.” He adds jokingly, “Next year it could be Jamsteady on Mars, for all you know.”

More details of Jamsteady’s Big Sunday, including tickets, are available on their official website.